Planned Parenthood provides basic health care. If clinics close, where will many women go?

Citing deep funding cuts, at least 200 Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide are at risk.

When the Trump administration suddenly froze federal funding to more than 100 Planned Parenthood clinics this spring, the organization’s Michigan branch was already deep into hard discussions about its finances.

“The leadership team and our board had been scenario planning for months to try to fill those gaps to see how we could continue providing care,” said Ashlea Phenicie, chief external affairs officer of Planned Parenthood of Michigan.

The only option was clear. Michigan’s 14 Planned Parenthood clinics serve tens of thousands of women. In order to save clinics around the state that were either busier or in places where women had few other options, the team would have to close multiple clinics, including the only one in the state’s Upper Peninsula, a large, isolated and mostly rural area surrounded by a stretch of Lake Michigan. In Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan, the city’s two clinics would be combined.

It’s a reality playing out across the country.

At least 20 Planned Parenthood clinics have closed or will close within the year. For decades, the health care organization has been squeezed by the same pressures choking nearly all U.S. providers –– low insurance reimbursement rates, blocked Medicaid expansion, understaffing and rising costs of providing medical care that have forced hospitals and health clinic closures throughout the country.